Coffman
I admire your honesty and I think you've hit the nail on the head. I believe the AEFs has largely been seen as a club for ex regular QSPs. Nothing wrong with that and full respect to the chaps giving up their time to fly cadets. However, it begs the question since we now have a surplus of highly experienced VGS instructors who were qualified on a similar type then it should be straight forward to convert them.
Also, is there any reason why former CGIs and/or NCO pilots could not fly the Tutor? From a purely flying standards point of view there is no reason but they're not "chaps" are they? OC 2 FTS is well known for his dislike of civilians and presumably that extends to non commissioned riff raff.
Leaving aside the AEF issue the thing that really grates about the official announcement is the blatant spin involved. They're "putting lip stick on a pig" IMHO. The Air Cadets are having a huge reduction in flying TRAINING as opposed to air experience. To pretend otherwise is counter productive. By all means look at the glass as half full but it's still a very sad time for the ACO as a whole.
As to how this episode was handled and the way the VGS staff have been kept in the dark....don't get me started!
Mushers